Criticism of private equity "ridiculous", say practitioners

Many private equity practitioners are probably cursing the day Mitt Romney decided to run for the US presidency. In a contentious primary race, rival Republican candidates have demonised Romney for his career at Bain Capital, accusing him of being a vulture capitalist, a job destroyer and, among other things, the archetypal one-percenter.

In truth, Romney is far richer than that with a net worth of around $250 million, he is more like the 1% of the 1%. Yet his attempt to win the nomination has drawn the private equity industry into the political limelight, with critics from both sides from John Stewart to Bill O’Reilly decrying the 15% tax rate...